The European Commission clarified what “negligible risk” deforestation means

The European Commission (EC) released a new guidance document regarding European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) in which it confirms the timetable and clarifies what does the term “negligible risk” means.

Despite discussions of a further delay, the new guidance document clarifies conclusively that the deadline is still 30 December 2025, with the 30 June 2026 deadline for small or micro undertakings.

About the “negligible risk” term, the new document of the EC says that “a product is of negligible risk if, after a full assessment is made of it, it is concluded that there is no cause for concern about its links to deforestation”.

The due diligence process required for a commodity to achieve a negligible risk is streamlined for lower risk countries, with fewer steps required, as long as operators can be sure all elements of the relevant product were produced within the low-risk country in question.

Non-SME (Small and Medium-sized Enterprises) operators must check that proper due diligence was carried out upstream. This does not necessarily involve checking each due diligence statement individually, the guidance document clarifies, but can mean simply ascertaining that suppliers have an operational and up-to-date due diligence system in place.

The guidance document also clarifies which local laws are relevant to the legislation: those pertaining to the area of production. These include land use rights, environmental protections, forest related rules such as those around biodiversity conservation, traditional land use rights for indigenous people and labor rights applying to those in the area of production. Operators must ensure that they are aware of the relevant legislation.

Finally, it stresses that a product is only deforestation-linked if the deforestation in question is done in service of agricultural use. Forest removed for uses other than agricultural use does not come under the regulation’s definition of “deforestation”.